


The Looking Glass

by flyingisabetterwordforfalling (FlyingFalling)



Series: In Wonderland [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - This World Inverted (Shadowhunters TV), Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Bisexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody Lives, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, Love Letters, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Multi, Parabatai Bond, established relationship(s) - Freeform, they deserve nice things, without being actually parabatai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingFalling/pseuds/flyingisabetterwordforfalling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all this time, I still do not want to think about how you must have felt as the rune was put onto your skin, more permanent than every single wedding band would ever be -at least that have been my thoughts and back then I regretted having it on me forever the moment I got it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Looking Glass

 

Michael.  
  
  
You have seen me when I was weak; have seen me like that for so many years. Again and again. You held me when I cried, when I thought I could not make it.

You held my hand, helped me up again.

You were always there for me. Always you.

You, as a child, a teen, an adult -you used to be my constancy, the other missing half to mine.  
What would have happened if we would not have been as close back then, would we have had a chance?  
  
I want to tell myself that you were not good for me. That you would eventually have dragged me down. In the end, you did.

I all too gladly took the fall.

I know by now, and I have felt it back then, that I was the one who was not good enough.

I was not good enough for you.

What would have happened if we, against all odds, would have ended up together?  
  
Now I tell myself that it is better off that way, we could not have had the slightest chance of being together anyway.

Being with you was and always has been more important than actually being in love with you, holding your hand not just as your parabatai but as your partner in every definition of that word. Even back then, I wanted to be with you. 

 

Being popular with girls was never your thing, but it was mine and I enjoyed their charms.

Even when I knew how lovely the smile of a girl can be, I knew just how much I wanted to see yours for the rest of my life, or as long as I could.

Thus, I told myself to stop feeling like that.

Caring about you from afar was the only way I knew how to compensate loving you at all.

And then, after forcing myself for years to keep every little emotion beyond our familiarity I have ever felt towards you, I almost choked on my feelings for you.  
  
It was then, then that you said the words that were stuck to the back of my throat, and I reacted the only way I could think of.

People like us; we should never ever be together.

We could get too strong, and in the end too dangerous.

Loving you at the risk of losing not only my but also your sanity would never be worth it. I could never risk that, rather you.

Even now I cannot look back and remember the words I said to you without disdain, I was not disgusted by you, rather deeply by me.

I selfishly did nothing to stop you from falling in love with me.  
You blindly trusting me took the fall -trusting that I would catch you.  
I did not, could not. I loved you, as you loved me.  
It was wrong. Not your fault, but mine.  
It was an error, my personal human error.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Dearest Rob,   
  
I have found your letter by accident, do you even remember writing it? My name was written onto it, thus I assumed it was clearly meant for me to read it. It has turned yellow over the years, hidden away in the box I gave to you on the day of your wedding. However, the letter itself must be older. It is written in your scrawly writing you used to have as an adolescent. We were adults, still not quite experienced enough to face everything, however we thought we were. Now I know, your letter was a poem, and not a letter at all... never actually meant for me to see.  
  
You must have written it after we got our matching tattoos, just months before you eventually proposed to Maryse. I remember the look on your face, when you showed me the ring you had chosen for her, you looked uncertain as if you waited for me to say something. Something to take the doubting look out of your eyes and when I smiled at you, persuading you to do something reckless, without thinking about the consequences, before you got down on one knee, and then would tie the knot, and you agreed. You agreed to something that would remind us of our friendship, that even with girlfriends and wives, we would still be there for each other, if not as brothers in blood than as brothers in spirit.  
  
And now mine has faded a little, but the tattoo is still there -just like our bond- the rune you found as a child in one of your grandfather's old books which, as you explained excitedly, stood for eternal friendship, the combination of two souls. Ever since you have found that book you have not called me your best friend again, but your parabatai. Even now you do, this is the name you still call me, besides my actual first name of course. According to you, it said more than every other word could ever mean -at least to us, I looked it up one day and it apparently has to do with fighting together. And we did fight, in the end each other.  
  
After all this time, I still do not want to think about how you must have felt as the rune was put onto your skin, more permanent than every single wedding band would ever be -at least that have been my thoughts and back then I regretted having it on me forever the moment I got it. I had mine partly covered, a while after I had married Eliza, someone most people did not actually like for being an activist, fighting for equal rights, for people who could not fight for themselves -an outcast just like myself.  
  
Well, most people, society itself, did not like us all that much back then. All of us used to be activists in our late-teens, but most of us stopped, or rather settled down a bit. We fought for equal rights, also for the recognition of different sexual and gender identities and even though Ellie knew about my sexuality she never talked about it. And I still know she believed that there was more to us, to you and me, than what met the eye. She knew I loved you more than I loved her even before I acknowledged it myself.  
  
We never got a divorce and I had had the rune interlaced with roses when she died after giving birth to Jonathan, to remember her, because even though I loved you more I still loved her deeply. She had been one of my closest friends after all, someone I fell in love with and decided to propose to.  
  
It was nothing like our proposal, Rob. Ours was messy, with our children running around, knocking the picnic basket over, with Izzy chasing her brothers around the garden and you yelling after them to not hurt themselves. Still I would not have wanted it any other way, maybe expect for one part. In the end, we had to rush to the hospital due to Max having tripped and landed in the pond, breaking his arm in the progress and you were shouting at the poor ambulance driver to go faster after having jumped after Max yourself to get him out of the water. You were way too mean to the poor driver, and you have always been like that.   
  
Whenever you worry about someone you love, you make it clear by getting loud and sometimes even extremely rude, if you intend to protect them. I have never seen you as silent as you were, when we sat at Max's bedside, waiting for him to wake up. Every few minutes answering calls from Alexander, Isabelle and Maryse, who had taken the two in as long as we waited for Max to wake up. As his mother she was as anxious as the two of us were, even though it was just a broken arm.  
  
You were sobbing into my shirt, even though I know you would probably deny it by now, when your, rather our boy lay there without moving. It was and still is always amazing to see just how much you love the children. Even now it breaks my heart, knowing that one time you actually did believe love was nothing more than weakness. Sitting there, right next to you, trying to calm you down, you asked me if I wanted to spent the rest of my life with you. Even though you had proposed to me just hours before asking me again. Rob, my dear, you actually had the nerve to ask if I had something against you being a father of three... while I had a child myself and most of yours were my godchildren long before they became my stepchildren, they have long since been part of my family.  
  
And when you wake up in the morning I will give this letter to you, before we leave to attend a wedding party, to welcome another person into our family. My Rob, my dear husband, you will get as emotional as ever and I love you for so many reasons, and you openly showing how much you love your family is just one of them.  
  
  
With all my love,

Michael

 

 

 

 


End file.
